Image schemas as prototypes in the diachronic evolution of kámnō and eutheiázō in Greek: A behavioural-profile analysis

Abstract

This is a diachronic, comparative, corpus-based study of the development of the Ancient Greek verbs kámnō and eutheiázō, originally meaning GET TIRED and STRAIGHTEN, respectively, into their modern meanings, roughly corresponding to English DO and MAKE, respectively. In doing so, the study theoretically and methodologically integrates the notion of image-schematic topology that underlies the conceptualisation of a term with the latter‘s behavioural profile. The underlying image schemas are shown to represent a gestalt prototype that not only licenses the semantic extension of a term but also constrains its polysemic potential, preserving its schematic structure diachronically. For kámnō, the schematic space is the vector of work produced by an energy source inversely proportional to the energy potential of this source. For eutheiázō, the schematic space is an arrangement internal to an entity that infers a telic state of order. The analysis uses the visualisation of multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) of the behavioural profiles of the two terms, kámnō and eutheiázō, for three stages: Ancient, Mediaeval and Modern Greek.